Relationships & circumstance
Aug. 27th, 2012 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseHaving considered it previously as part of the larger framework, the fact that I’ve had friendships fall away with each move isn’t so surprising. I have far fewer friends now than I had at school and the few school friends that I do, partially, keep in contact with are those that I actually had more than circumstance in common with. Similarly, my university friends, discounting some bad romantic entanglements that overshadowed everything else, were also friends born out of situational proximity. In particular, my second university move landed me with friends who’d grown up in the area and had been close friends before I’d ever met them, and who weren’t intending on leaving the area either. These friendships have similarly fallen away because what brought us together was circumstance and not similarity.
In 6th Form the commonality between myself and a vast array of friends, who were really acquaintances, was an endless round of clubbing on the weekends. Going to a variety of clubs, up to 40 miles away on occasion, wasn’t really the sort of situation to foster any kind of depth to conversation anyway, if there was any real conversation at all. This produced a large number of acquaintances who, in the long run, I didn’t necessarily have anything in common with. Similarly, university did much the same thing, and various workplaces. The volume of people that I make an effort to remain in contact with has decreased dramatically and that’s not exactly an issue. The people I am in contact with are people that I want to talk to because I have things in common with them. I have 4 truly close friends and that’s, in my estimation, a decent number of people that know me completely. Beyond that I can probably count 8 more who aren’t as close, i.e. haven’t seen me in my nightclothes or asleep in bed, but who equally know me well. And again this isn’t actually a bad number for the level of intimacy.
Overall, thinking about it, I’ve occasionally fallen prey to the social myth that suggests that lots of friends, regardless of actual commonality and who usually don’t know you all that well, equals some sort of happiness. I’d honestly rather let the circumstantial friendships die a natural death, where we no longer have anything in common with each other, than try to artificially sustain them out of a fear of lacking numbers. Far better to have circumstantial friendships in my current situation, and then work on developing any fortuitous similarities that come my way, than worry about quantity.
In 6th Form the commonality between myself and a vast array of friends, who were really acquaintances, was an endless round of clubbing on the weekends. Going to a variety of clubs, up to 40 miles away on occasion, wasn’t really the sort of situation to foster any kind of depth to conversation anyway, if there was any real conversation at all. This produced a large number of acquaintances who, in the long run, I didn’t necessarily have anything in common with. Similarly, university did much the same thing, and various workplaces. The volume of people that I make an effort to remain in contact with has decreased dramatically and that’s not exactly an issue. The people I am in contact with are people that I want to talk to because I have things in common with them. I have 4 truly close friends and that’s, in my estimation, a decent number of people that know me completely. Beyond that I can probably count 8 more who aren’t as close, i.e. haven’t seen me in my nightclothes or asleep in bed, but who equally know me well. And again this isn’t actually a bad number for the level of intimacy.
Overall, thinking about it, I’ve occasionally fallen prey to the social myth that suggests that lots of friends, regardless of actual commonality and who usually don’t know you all that well, equals some sort of happiness. I’d honestly rather let the circumstantial friendships die a natural death, where we no longer have anything in common with each other, than try to artificially sustain them out of a fear of lacking numbers. Far better to have circumstantial friendships in my current situation, and then work on developing any fortuitous similarities that come my way, than worry about quantity.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-28 11:18 pm (UTC)I agree with that sentiment entirely. Which may be at odds with me still wanting to read what you have to say, but so be it.